Nora – but Nora says no, and her mother falls silent again.
Did you answer a call from Bren, the day he left, Nora asks.
A blink. A beat. A wave back and forth from the cat.
I told you –
You told me he called to say goodbye, Nora says. Sorry and goodbye.
Freya is looking at her, desperate, and for a slice of a second Nora wants, so badly, to be wrong. Would give anything, in fact, for Bren to be the one who had wronged her, the way she’d always thought, because she has tried to ignore the thing with Jon but the call with Bren feels bigger, almost, because it’s her, because it’s him: because it’sthem.
He says he called here and left me a message, she says, asking me to join him. Did you take that message.
I’m –
Did you take that message, Freya?
I didn’t know what to do, her mother says, and her voice is unlike her own: soft, and pleading. Jon had just … died, and …
A roaring, now, in Nora’s ears.
I know it looks bad, Freya says, I know you must have drawn conclusions, but there’s more to it – and then he died –
I know he fucking died!I know!
Tears, now, in Nora’s throat. With grief, or rage.
He died and Ihatedhim! Nora says. Bren’sdad! Our friend! But after I saw you together, I couldn’tlookat him, I felt so – sick, and ashamed – and then his fucking heart gave out and I didn’t know what todowith that, Freya, so I’ve kept it quiet all this time for Josie, not for you, d’you understand? Because it wouldkillher. It’d fucking kill her.
No tears, from Freya. No reply.
And then my – my best –
But there is no language, for what Bren was; what he is, still.
– heleft! Without me! And I was heartbroken! And it turns outyoucaused that, Freya! Why! I want to know why! Are you really so against me being with someone? So sour aboutbeing a bitter, lonely spinster that you had to stopmebeing with him, away from here? Away fromyou?
Yes! Freya cries, and her eyes are wild. Yes, Nora! Jon died! Out of nowhere! I was in shock, you have to understand that! I was devastated, but I had to hold it together – I had to be there for –
Don’t pretend you’re her friend, Nora near-spits. What kind of friend would do that, to someone?
Her mother lets out a winded noise, at this, puts her head in her hands. Nora stays rigid in the chair, and they stay like that, heartbeats like deadened drums, until Freya lowers her palms.
And then Bren phoned the landline, she murmurs, and he said all of these things. How he felt. Where he would wait, for you. And I was grieving, Nora, I was bereft, and I – I couldn’t have you leaving me, too.
The silence stretches like time itself, then. Twelve whole years of it.
I didn’t mean t –
Didn’t mean to what? Sabotage my entire life? Let me think that what I had with Bren was nothing? Watch me meet someone else, getengagedto someone else, someone I wouldn’t have evenmetif you hadn’t hidden that phone call –
But you did meet him! And you’re happy!
That is sonotthe point.
Be with Bren, then! He’s back, now!
Freya,listento yourself. I am not like you. I am not willing to play with people’sliveslike that. I can’t just swap Robin for Bren, Jesus,nothingis that simple, and if you thi –
